St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-09-04

~ 1T 81
NJ 49, reference to this queS-
nm tSesFsA ton that it is by no
-r~>sSWSf means certain that
VS. nMt%S American women are
aSSpf to greater extent
than the women of
other countries dis
posed to shun an obligation that they
owe to the human species. The sense
of duty in this respect is gradually be-
coming less imperative with the women
of all civilized countries. Very few con-
slider it a duty at all that they should
undergo suffering and discomfort in
order that the state may have its popu-
latiOn increased. Their chief regard is
and they care little or nothing for the
body polite. The maternal instinct is
dying out before education and refine
ment, and is already in great part sue
ceeded by factor which is nothing
more than an act of the intellect by
which the advantages and disadvant-
ages of maternity are fully considered,
and by which a determination, affirma-
tive, or negative, is arrived at in ac-
cordance with the circumstances gov
erning each particular case.
Fifty years ago probably not one
young married couple in a thousand
thought of this subject with view to
the employment of any preventive
measures. Now it is in many cases
calmly discussed either before or after
marriage, especially when the parties
are in position of life above that of
the very lowest.
The indiSpOsitiOn to assume the cares
and responsibilities of motherhood exist
to greater or less extent throughout
the whole civilized world. But l am
very confident from my own personal
experience, as well as from the obser-
walton of many physicians and intelli-
gent laymen with whom l have con-
ferred, that American women are pre-
eminent among those of all civilized ma
lions in their anxiety to escape the OBJ
legations that the bearing and rearing
of children impose. Besides it is no
small point in support of this assertion
that it is accepted with singular una
nlmity by Intelligent people in all classes
of the community
THE WOMEN OF OTHER NATIONS.
1t is true that the women of France
are not far behind in this ignoble race,
and that English women are rapidly
gaining prominent place in it, but for
the present at least American women
lead. There are many reasons for this
pre-eminence. 1t will be sufficient per-
hapS, in the present connection, if l re-
fer only to three which appear to me to
be of chief Importance.
In the first place, many American
women are so educated as to acquire the
belief that personal display, luxury, land
what they call excitement" are the
principal considerations by which they
are to be actuated in the pursuit of hap
plneSs. 1t is only necessary to see them,
Of Q thnIr frnnInrf
resorts to which they flock in the sum-
mer and to observe their dress and man.
nerS in order to perceive how feeble and
erroneous is their idea of the place of
woman in the world. In what other
civilized countries are young girls al
lowed to walk either during the day or
till late at night, if it so pleaseS them,
with men whose acquaintance they have
just made and of whose antecedents
they know positively nothing?
1t is SAID that American women, by
being allowed such freedom, soon ac-
quire the ability to take care of them
selves; but it is just this sense of power,
when they attain it, which is to great
extent one OF the circumstances which
influences them In their antagoniSm to
maternity. They know that with the
care of children on their hands their
liberties wouldube curtailed, and that
their independence would in a great
measure vanish.
But to return to the summer resorts,
which must be held to be largely re-
sponsible for the changes which within
the last fifty years have taken place in
the women Of America. Here from the
child of less than a dozen years up to
the age of maturity, bedecked in silks
and satinS of gorgeous hues and often
blazing with diamonds and other pre-
ciouS stones, they assemble night after
night. in the bal! room to engage in
promiscuOus dancing with boys and men
they have never met before. They are
sharp enough to perceive that the
women with children who may be in the
house cannot participate in the gayeties
and that they receive little attention.
The lesson is one that they never I'M
learn. They f1irt with one man after
another, employing wileS which excite
the establishment of their elders, while
the mothers are either looking after
their babies or sitting in corners feeling
that summons to attend one of them
may at any moment come. The bellies
know that only rich men can provide
them with the servants requisite to at
tend to the wants of children, but they
also know that rich men are few and
far between.
Through these influences. and MANY
others that might be mentioned, an
undue love for the frivolitieS of life is
engendered, and when marriage comes
the bride knows that with pregnancy
and childbirth, and the after-care of
children, her giddy days would be over,
and that she would sink into the hum
drum existence she both hates and fears.
THE FAULT is THE PARENTS.
After all, the fault in such cases rests
primarily with the parents. They are,
perhaps, the architects of their own
fortunes, arriving at competence only
ance of many hardships. Proud of
their daughters so-called accomplish
ments, they crafty themselves by Show
ing her off arrayed with a degree of
SplendOr far beyond what her mother
had ever dreamed of in her most hilar-
ious slumbers. They see her admired
by men of higher social position than
the one they had occupied in their
young days, and they feel fully COM
pensated for the poverty and all its at
tendant evils of their own married
life, with their six or more children,
when they witness the social triumphs of
one night at a fashionable watering
place where her two daughters, neither
of them fifteen years old, magnificently
attired and with solitaire diamonds
sparkling in their ears, were rushing
through round dance with partners to
whom another girl of like age had Just
introduced them-''Ah! if it had not
been for my children might have been
just as fine belle as either of those
girls" Doubtless she had said the same
thing to them hundred times. Hence
it comes that 1.-The girls" taught by pre-
cept and experience, find that their hap
pineSS consists in following other lines
in life than those which lead to ma
ternity.